The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing

Bessie Smith: ANY WOMAN’S BLUES

helped solve a number of problems. It allowed me to seek a colloquial language suited to each subject and better suited, I thought, to the subject as a whole than generationalenthusiasm(the“groovy/farout/awesome”syndrome)oracademic pretension. It allowed me, in other words, to reflect the music without trying to dissect it, something for which I was neither prepared nor in which I believed. It also gave me a fresh path to pursue every time I started a new project, since each artist stakes out his own territory, every artist has his or her own story to tell, no matterhowitmayconnectwithacommontraditionorfuseincertainelemental ways with that of others. But the pursuit of endless byways can carry with it its ownprice,asanywriter,asanyonewhoappreciatesthedigressiveandthestrange, inevitably finds. You listen to music for a living, and you no longer hear with the earsoftheteenagerwhooncediscoveredit.Youpursueyourcuriosity,andittends to carry you further and further afield, until the question arises: How do you get backtotheplaceyouoncewere?Howdoyourekindlethatsimpleenthusiasmfor the music, the ardor I sought to describe in that same 1971 epilogue to my first book as “an emotional experience which I could not deny. It expressed for me a sense of sharp release and a feeling of almost savage joy”? Theshortansweristhatyoucan’t—atleastnotwithoutassumingakindofdisingenuousness as embarrassing as any other transparent attempt to deny age or experience. But in another sense, who knows what disingenuousness I was capable of even at fifteen, when I first discovered the music, or at twenty-seven, when I wrote those words? I’m not convinced we are ever wholly ingenuous. But whether we are or not, what other hope is there except in surrender, whatever indignitiessurrendermayentail?Sointheendthatismyadvice:Surrendertothe music.ThatiswhatItrusttheunderlyingmessageofmywritingtobe.Surrender toMuddyWaters.SurrendertoSolomonBurke.SurrendertoSamCookeandBob Dylan and Sleepy LaBeef and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. We are all just looking to get lost. BOOK OF GREAT MUSIC WRITING 7 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 7 Leadbelly ANOTHER WORLD by Robert Gordon Youaresittingnexttostrangers,onacitybus,ormaybeinadoctor’swaitingroom. The space is close and would be claustrophobic, but you begin to overhear conversation—arivetingtale,anoldman’slife,aworldawayfromyourown.The one you thought was his son next to him, or his niece on his other side, are strangers, and this man is talking not to them but to everyone; and unlike the crazedrantsfromwhichpolitefolkaverttheireyes,hisstoryholdstheroomrapt. SuchistheeffectofLeadbelly’sLastSessions,PartOne,arevelationofanother world in song. I have been listening to my copy for more than twenty years, and I continuetolearnfromit—notonlyaboutLeadbelly’slifeandAmericansongbut alsoaboutmusicalarrangementsandproductionandaboutmyownlifeandwhat I don’t know. This album is no Sgt. Pepper’s, no hi-tech layering of sound. In fact, it could hardlybemorelo-fi.ItisonlyLeadbellyandhiswife,Martha,singing—noinstruments . They’re not even in a recording studio but in a New York apartment; a friend, jazz scholar Frederic Ramsey, Jr., had invited them to dinner, after which adiscussionaboutrecordingledtoretrievingatapedeckfromthecloset.Wehear dishes being cleared, beer bottles being opened. Then, Leadbelly sings ’em as he thinksof ’em,movingfromearly-twentieth-centuryfieldhollertocontemporary protest song. There are gospel and Army songs, pop tunes, and plenty of blues. Overthecourseofanhour,Leadbellysingsmorethanthirty.Somegetintroductions , others flit past. I had a hard time finding my way into this record when I bought it as a 8 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 8 teenager in the mid-’70s. ALL USED LPS $1.88 read the store’s banner out front. I knew nothing of Leadbelly but what the cover photo told me: he was black and old.TheLPwasalsoold(Iwasbuyingthe1962reissueofthe1953originalrelease), on thick vinyl, and made of heavier paper stock than the glossy Boston and Kiss albums that overflowed from other bins. Instead of opening with the hook of a great pop hit, Leadbelly’s Last Sessions begins with muffled conversation and hard-to-understand words, making us eavesdroppers. Once the singing finally begins (no guitar, no piano, no harmonica whipped out from anyone’s pocket), it’s a far cry from the push and pull of teenage amour: I was standing in the bottom Working mud up to my knees I was working for the captain And he’s so hard to please. I remember reeling around when I heard him sing “Miss Liza Jane.” We’d sung that in kindergarten. Then: “Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care . . . ,” then “Bet on Stewball, he might win win win.” I recognized “Bring Me a Little Water Silvy” from a Belafonte record my family played on car trips, and just before the firstsideended,Igotaroots-rocksurprise.Therewasahard-rockradiohitatthe timebysomegroup,Ramjamperhaps,called“BlackBetty,”andhereitwasagain, justLeadbelly’svoiceandhishandclapping—oneclappermeasure,smackinglike a bullwhip: Black Betty had a...